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Thursday, December 24, 2015

8 Common (but Worthless) Education Phrases That Should Die in 2015

Campbell Brown uses a worthless Ed phrase in The Seventy Four's mission statement. She writes, "Our public education system is in crisis." This hyped statement plays well in the press but ignores history and assumes too much about what schools can contribute to the eventual well-being of its students - while conveniently blaming the institution for failings that emanate from other places in society. It is a lot like Campbell's own choice of a phrase to dump - "failing schools."

Fayette County Superintendent Manny Caulk recently called himself a "transformational leader" during his public vetting. During his press conference I told him I had no idea what that really meant. Manny looked chagrined. I think he meant "hire me and things will get better," but I'm not sure.

Manny and Campbell are not alone. We all probably use worn out, meaningless phrases to argue one point or another. And Campbell collected a handful of them for our consideration.

As
the year draws to a close, now is a good time to consider what should
be left behind in 2015 — a New Year’s resolution in reverse so to speak.
In that vein, I started considering what education words and phrases
should be retired in 2015, because they’re vapid, overused, meaningless,
or just plain wrong. I also reached out to several education advocates,
journalists, and scholars for their nominees, many of whose initial
response was, “Where do I begin?”

I got a variety of terrific suggestions, and some of the best ones — plus my own — are below:

College and career readiness

“It's
time to retire the phrase ‘college and career readiness.’ It has become
a euphemism for ‘high standards,’ but using this jargon papers over
some tough questions. First of all, to what extent is college readiness
the same as career readiness? Sure, there are some skills that are
crucial to both, such as getting information from texts, or learning to
pose good questions and research their answers. But the truth is that
Algebra II is not a requirement for many good jobs, even though it is a
requirement for a four-year liberal arts college (and, increasingly,
high school graduation, too). Some of the most rigorous learning I've
seen has taken place at vocational high schools
that help students earn professional certifications alongside a high
school degree, though this isn't what the education community usually
has in mind when it talks about getting states to commit to "college and
career" standards like the Common Core.

“In
fact, the focus on the Common Core, while important, has detracted
attention from some of the other ways American education is unique
compared to schooling in other affluent nations. We lack sophisticated apprenticeships or workplace-learning opportunities,
which is one reason why American 18 to 25-year olds suffer from higher
youth unemployment than young adults in places like Germany or
Switzerland. In our constantly shifting economy, it would be dangerous
to prepare teenagers to do just one narrow job. But even students at
elite colleges would benefit from more structured exposure to the world
of adult careers. Workplace learning builds social-emotional skills like
collaboration, and helps students understand how classroom learning can
apply to real life. Let's retire ‘college and career ready,’ and
instead talk specifically about the types of experiences that will help
students prepare for an economy that will require them to be lifelong
learners.”

Data-driven

“I'd
nominate the expression ‘data-driven,’ which increasingly is used as a
seal of approval for any decision or program that someone wants to
peddle or defend, whatever its quality. If it's data-driven, it's got to
be good. The expression elevates data — typically quantitative data —
over judgment, even when the data used are faulty, incomplete, or
irrelevant to the decision at hand.

“Often
in education, many factors must be weighed as teachers and
administrators choose instructional programs, make moment-to-moment
pedagogical choices, or design and interpret assessments. Such analysis
is a professional responsibility that should not be shirked. Yet, the
label ‘data-driven’ can lull us into believing that ‘experts’ have done
all the important work for us. In fact, educators have both the right
and the responsibility to make and to justify their own decisions, based
on the best qualitative and quantitative information available.”

Differentiation

“Differentiation
is a splendid notion — but it doesn't work at scale in truly
heterogeneous classrooms. It’s akin to presenting a physician with two
dozen patients who manifest different symptoms, differing degrees of
illness, and, upon examination, many different ailments. It’s unlikely
that any one doctor can do a great job with all of them, especially when
strapped for time and resources. He’s apt to engage in a form of
triage, focusing mainly on those he can readily help and giving less
attention to the mildly ill. The sickest may be sent to the hospital and
others referred to appropriate specialists. Teachers, however, are
expected to be all things to (almost) all youngsters. Few, at least in
the United States, have had much training in effective strategies for
meeting this challenge. And most of those with whom we have spoken admit
that, while technology and small classes surely help, they don’t often
feel that they’re meeting it well. Some accept the premise of
differentiation but then — triage style — pitch much of their
instruction to kids in the middle of the achievement/ability/motivation
distribution, doing less for pupils who are either lagging far behind or
capable of surging ahead.”

Transformational leadership

Submitted by: Naomi Nix, Senior Reporter, The Seventy Four

“Transformational leadership may have once been a revolutionary theory among academics
to describe a management style that inspires employees to produce
extraordinary results as opposed to ruling over them with an iron fist.
Education insiders took note of the concept and ran with it, sprinkling
the term in everything from major policy initiatives to more foundation reports.
These days, the term is bandied about so often it's lost its punch.
Let's agree to give the phrase a rest and get back to discussing
specific strategies to improve leadership of our schools.”

21st century skills

“So
the Maya were not critical thinkers? This term perpetuates the idea
that you can teach such skills directly. In reality, even 3-year-olds
can engage in critical thinking. What they lack is knowledge, not some thinking skill.“

________ "works" and best practices

“Almost
anything could work, but whether it actually does in a certain setting
often comes down to local context and implementation. This applies to a
whole host of education interventions, like charters or pre-k or teacher
prep. Basically any time someone inserts the phrase ‘high-quality
_____,’ what they mean is that the implementation must look exactly like
they have in their minds or else it won't "work."

“Education
policy is too often made based on ‘best practices’ that are little more
than theory or anecdotes. My favorite example of this is in teacher
prep, where everyone seems to have a magic cure for ‘what works,’ like
longer clinical placements or higher entry standards or additional
content requirements, but none of these provide any guarantees for
whether someone will actually be a good teacher. Worse, these ‘best
practices’ often get codified in policy, so then we have other places
trying to replicate someone else's intervention using rules written on
paper, even if we're not sure that intervention was effective in the
first place!”

Test-and-punish and high-stakes testing

“These
terms are not very useful because quite few people have actually been
punished through standardized tests over the last decade. Very
few teachers have been fired because of poor student test results,
school sanctions under NCLB were mostly quite weak, if they were applied
at all, and the large majority of state tests have no stakes for
students whatsoever. To be sure, some tests are actually high-stakes
(e.g., graduation exams for students), but as compared to the stakes
attached to standardized tests in many other countries, most of our
tests are quite low- (or even no-) stakes. So it's a convenient slogan
and scare tactic that belies reality.”

And my pick, for the education phrase that should be banned from 2016:

Failing schools

The
term is overused, underdefined, narrowly applied, and unnecessarily
divisive. I don’t doubt that there are many schools out there that can
improve, often significantly. But the failing school label is frequently
glibly applied to any school with low English and math test score
proficiency rates. Such scores, though, tell us little or nothing
about the quality of the school because they don’t account for where
students start at; they also focus too much on test scores, which are important, but don’t tell the whole story.

On
a more personal note, I used to teach at a school that some would deem
‘failing.’ And indeed in many respects it could have improved. But the
vast majority of teachers there worked our butts off and cared deeply
about kids. Casting schools and educators as ‘failures’ only serves to
alienate teachers without helping them get better.

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So far as we know, we only get one lifetime. So, when I "retired" in 2004, after 31-years in public education I wanted to do something different. I wanted to teach, write and become a student again. I have since spent a decade in higher ed.

I have listened to so many commentaries over the years about what should be done to improve Kentucky's schools - written largely by folks who have never tried to manage a classroom, run a school, or close an achievement gap. I came to believe that I might have something to offer.

I moved, in 1985, from suburban northern Kentucky to what was then the state’s flagship district - Fayette County. I have had a unique set of experiences to accompany my journey through KERA’s implementation. I have seen children grow to graduate and lead successful lives. I have seen them go to jail and I have seen them die. I have been amazed by brilliant teachers, dismayed by impassive bureaucrats, disappointed by politicians and uplifted by some of Kentucky’s finest school children. When I am not complaining about it, I will attest that public school administration is critically important work.

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On the campaign trail...with my wife Rita

An action shot: The Principal...as a much younger man.

Faculty Senate Chair

Serving as Mace Bearer during the Inauguration of Michael T. Benson as EKU's 12th president.

Teaching

EDF 203 in EKU's one-room schoolhouse.

Professin'

Lecturing on the history of Berea College to Berea faculty and staff, 2014.

Faculty Regent

One in a long series of meetings. 2016

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